The construction of a series of Arctic LNG carriers under the technical supervision of Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RS) is in progress: in November “BORIS VILKITSKY” and “FEDOR LITKE” gas carriers were delivered to the customer and the keel of a new gas carrier was laid (hull No. 2427).

A series of 15 LNG carriers unique in design, is being constructed as part of the implementation of the large-scale RF liquefied natural gas production project Yamal LNG. The construction site is Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering shipyard in the Republic of Korea.

The new gas carriers are capable of all year round operation at temperatures up to – 50 °С. High ice class Arc7 allows them to navigate independently in the ice of up to 2,1 m thick when moving astern. The ships are equipped with three Azipod propulsion units of 45 MW joint capacity, which is comparable to the capacity of a nuclear icebreaker. A new membrane-type gas containment system GT NO96 GW used in cargo tanks with a total capacity of 172,600 m3, ensures safe LNG transportation through the Northern Sea Route.

Boris Andreyevich Vilkitsky headed the hydrographic expedition of the Arctic Ocean, which in 1913 - 1915 carried out the first end-to-end navigation on the ships "Taimyr" and "Vaigach" along the Northern Sea Route, having made a number of geographical discoveries. The strait between the Taymyr Peninsula and Severnaya Zemlya, a bay in the Barents Sea, two capes and a glacier on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago and islands in the Kara and Laptev Sea have been named after Boris Vilkitsky.

Fedor Petrovich Litke is a Russian navigator who circumnavigated the globe twice, an explorer of the Eastern Arctic, an admiral, President of the Academy of Sciences, a Demidov Prize laureate, one of the founders of the Russian Geographical Society and its Vice-Chairman. 22 geographical objects in the Arctic and Pacific have been named after Fedor Litke, including the cape, peninsula, mountain and bay on Novaya Zemlya, the islands in the Franz Josef Land and Nordenskjold archipelagos, the strait between Kamchatka and the Karaginsky Island.